


Magick and Weirdness

by harinezumiko



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Blood and Injury, Creepy, Horror, M/M, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harinezumiko/pseuds/harinezumiko
Summary: Ryou is excited to be starting a new roleplaying campaign - but only one of his players has shown up. He doesn't seem like himself, but he is only playing a role, right?
Relationships: Bakura Ryou/Yami Marik, Yami Bakura/Marik Ishtar
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Magick and Weirdness

**Author's Note:**

> For Spoop-geist as part of the YGO Shipfest Server's 2nd Hallowe'en Event. I hope you like it!

The doorbell rings. Three impatient buzzes, and then a finger left on the button, drilling harshly into Ryou's ears. He tugs a t-shirt, two sizes too big, over his wet hair and legs it for the door. He pushes the door release, leaves his apartment door open, and runs back to pull on his jeans.

When he leaves the bedroom for the second time Marik is already sat on his couch, arms spread wide across the back of the seat. Ryou takes a seat at the table. There's something up with Marik - his smile a little too broad, his eyes a little too dark as he watches Ryou. Ryou scrunches his hands up where they sit on his knees.

"You're the first here," says Ryou. "I'm sorry I'm not quite ready."

If any of the others had come with him, Ryou could at least leave them chatting while he dried his hair, but it would be rude to leave a single guest alone, just as it would be rude to comment on his being early. The tips of his hair drip, making small dark patches on the light denim. Ryou thinks Marik is watching - he can see the flick of his eyes, down, then up, then down again, as the stain spreads across his thigh. Ryou tosses his hair back over his shoulders and covers the damp patch with a hand.

"So, did you have a character concept in mind?"

"A motumancer," says Marik, and Ryou is sure that the way his tongue runs over his upper lip afterwards is intentional.

"You want to draw a crowd, incite a riot, smash the system?" Ryou gives a small smile as he pulls one of the character sheets from the pile. "Sure, we can work towards making you an adept, I'll make that your objective. I told you all though, no-one starts with powers."

Marik shifts from the couch, taking a seat at the table with none of his usual insouciance. There's purpose in the way he pulls the chair out so the legs make an uncomfortable grinding noise against the floor, and in the way he pulls it almost a quarter turn round the table to sit down next to Ryou.

Ryou hops up instantly. "I'll fetch some drinks and snacks for the table while you familiarise yourself with the sheet."

He checks the time on his phone as he rifles through the fridge. Yugi should arrive soon, he's usually eager, especially at the start of a new campaign. Ryou's not sure why he feels like he needs rescuing - he and Marik have been very close in recent years - but something seems particularly awkward this evening.

"Did you do something new to your hair?" Ryou asks as he sets the tray down in the centre of the table. "This isn't LARP, you don't have to fit the setting yourself."

"You don't like it?" Marik runs a hand through his blond hair, somehow making it stick up even higher.

"I didn't say that," Ryou backtracks immediately, waving his hands in a placating fashion and smiling meekly.

Marik laughs, a short, sharp puff of air. Ryou takes the seat opposite and sets his gamemaster's screen up in front of him. It's only flimsy card decorated with garishly-coloured ghouls, but it still makes him feel secure enough to relax into his seat. He rolls his dice out of the pouch in front of him - he's got a new set recently, blue with gold lettering, though he was trying to save up for the solid metal set - and indicates the pencil pot at Marik's side.

"We can get started while we're waiting for the others," says Ryou.

"They're not coming," says Marik.

"Huh?" Ryou looks up from the pool of plastic gems in front of him. Marik eyes him steadily. "They didn't tell me."

"Yugi sent a message," says Marik. "He's otherwise occupied. Since it was such short notice, I decided to come anyway."

"Oh," says Ryou, trying to put a game face on over his disappointment. "This game really works best if we're all together for character creation,we have to make bonds between your characters and things like that... but I suppose I can give you a taster, since it's a new system? Your first encounter with magick."

"I would love a taste," says Marik, and the way he says it makes Ryou think of the coppery tang of blood.

"So, the first thing on the character sheet: name."

* * *

Marik shifts up his pose, a tiny bit at a time, allowing the photographer to follow his movements. This one works on real film, not digital. He won't be able to see any raws afterwards to check how the shoot went but he's confident enough in his ability that that doesn't worry Marik. It helps that the photographer is quite striking himself - sharp eyes, long bushy white hair tied back in a loose ponytail, some strands loose on top almost like bunny ears. It's easy to make love to the camera when the one wielding it is so easy on the eye.

"Okay, I think I got something I can work with," says the photographer. His lips curl back in a smile that reveals pointed canines.

"Will you be developing them tonight?" asks Marik, shrugging off the last outfit and swapping the pieces with the stylist for his own clothes. He makes sure to twist back towards the photographer to emphasise the contours of his stomach under the cropped tee.

"Tomorrow," says the photographer, his eyes roaming freely. "I feel like hitting the bars after working so hard."

"Same," says Marik with a grin.

That's how Marik finds himself hurtling into town on his motorbike, with the photographer's arms wrapped around his waist. Spirit, he'd said his name was, and Marik had laughed and asked whether his parents were hippies. The look in Spirit's eyes had suggested nothing so soft.

They'd stopped by a burger joint on the way. Marik never eats before a shoot and he'd been starving. Spirit had narrowed his eyes at the choice of restaurant, but Marik lives paycheck to paycheck and fast food is cheap. The burger had been pretty awful, though, greasy and smelling faintly of ozone, and it shouldn't be possible to get a static shock off reformed protein and sugary bread, but Marik swears that's exactly what happened.

The city lights shine bright against a yellowed sky. Marik parks his bike a few streets away from the entertainment district, where it's less likely to get hurled on by drunken revellers. He tugs Spirit along to one of his favourite haunts. It's no more than a hole in the wall, but dance music spills out into the night, and it's already packed with the young and the beautiful. It's the perfect excuse for Marik to squeeze up close to Spirit. Spirit sorts them a couple of drinks and Marik starts dancing, as well as he can in the confined space. It means he's rubbing up against Spirit - a thigh, a shoulder, a chest - and Spirit's free arm comes around to rest on Marik's hip.

That's when the bar explodes.

Marik's ears ring, almost as loud as the screaming around him. It's dark, but flashes of light and flame sting his retinas. Something pushes down on top of him. Shards of, probably, glass sting his hand and forearm. Marik can feel something wet leaking in the region of his stomach and he hopes to Ra it's some glittering cocktail.

"Spirit?" he croaks, pushing the dead weight on top of him over, struggling to his feet. "Spirit!"

Long white hair rests in a dark pool. The tips drink up the liquid, sucking redness greedily into the lengths. Marik pushes it aside, dizzily pressing his fingers to the body's exposed throat.

* * *

"A body, already? I didn't know you had it in you," says the Marik that is all points and edge.

"I said this would be a horror game," says the Ryou that is all clouds and cream.

"You should have flayed him, too, then," says Marik with glee, gesturing with the pencil. Ryou has imagined only, maybe, six ways to kill someone with a pencil. He tips his head on one side, wondering how long that would take, how many times would he need to use the sharpener. Purely for the game, of course.

"Good things come to those who wait," says Ryou serenely.

* * *

Spirit is dead.

And then he isn't.

He still has glass embedded in his skin, and a gaping wound in his left shoulder, but he's breathing where he wasn't just moments ago. Something had arced between Marik's fingers and Spirit's jugular and kickstarted his corpse.

Whatever it was has left Marik feeling bereft. He starts to shake, his fingers quivering against Spirit's skin, and a cold sweat prickles his forehead.

Spirit reaches up and grabs Marik's wrist. His expression is taut, his mouth just one more slash in his skin. "Those fuckers," he says.

"What fuckers?" says Marik between chattering teeth.

"We need to get out of here, now." Spirit yanks the two of them up, plaster and wood streaming down to the floor. They stumble across the dessicated artistic elite, unable to avoid stepping on a hand, slipping in a pool of blood. The smell suddenly hits Marik and he crumbles. Spirit flings an arm around his back and pulls him to the door. 

Once they're outside, Spirit takes a long, considering look at Marik. Seemingly satisfied, he pushes Marik away. "Go get your bike."

Marik starts running, as best he can on a twisted ankle, but on a whim stops and looks back. Spirit has his camera - apparently unhurt - in his hand, and is snapping away like his life depends on it.

In a way, Marik muses, it probably does.

When he returns with the bike, sirens are audible, closing on the bar. Spirit jumps on behind him, the weight pressing the bike's tail down, and Marik guns it.

* * *

"You can skip the tender wound-cleaning scene," says Marik.

"What makes you so sure that's how it would go?" smiles Ryou. "Perhaps you survive the magick-bombing, but die of tetanus."

Marik's laugh is unhinged. "That would serve him right."

"Who?" asks Ryou. His mouth feels suddenly dry and he reaches for a bottle from the tray between them. Marik's arm snakes out, pulling the same bottle out of Ryou's reach. Ryou sighs in resignation and cracks open the one next to it. The citrus flavour itches fuzzily against his lips. "You know, you should retain some separation between your character and yourself. You might want to rename them when we next play."

"And the NPC has white hair because...?" Marik taps the bottle with a fingernail. Slow. Steady. Maddening.

"It's fashionable," says Ryou defensively. "Editorial."

"And he's just a simple creative type," sneers Marik.

* * *

Spirit doesn't have a knife to Marik's throat. He doesn't need to. He's already demonstrated what he can do - pushing a pencil through the polaroid, the position of the hole in the silver halide Marik matching the wound that suddenly opened across the flesh and blood Marik's bicep. He only has to tear it in two and Marik's done for.

"Some people believe cameras can steal souls," says Spirit. He's breathing harshly, heavily wounded from their altercation. He coughs up a smile. "Would you believe that?"

Outside the empty house, a motorcycle courier cruises past. Marik's eyes flick back to Spirit.

"What do you want?" says Marik.

Spirit laughs as if he's never heard a joke before in his life. "More."

"I don't have money," says Marik.

"Money is nothing to people like us," says Spirit. Something rattles in his throat. "And yours is another kind of power entirely."

The motorcycle courier returns, slower this time, the thrum of the engine lower until eventually it stops, followed by the crank of a poorly maintained kickstand.

"What power?"

Spirit slumps against the wall, still clutching the polaroid tight. "Your looks, your charisma. People will follow you. You and I, we could do great things together."

Steps grow louder and shuffle on the decking outside the front door.

Spirit's eyes are clear and urgent. "Choose now."

The doorbell rings.

* * *

"The burger place? You've got to be kidding me. Where's the horror in takeout?" Marik throws his pencil back at the pot. Whether he was aiming to land it in the pot or not, he knocks it over.

"Why not?" Ryou folds closed his books. "It's all-pervasive, we ingest it unthinkingly, they know where we live. Anyway, I wouldn't have brought them in if you hadn't stopped off to eat in early game."

"If my _character_ hadn't stopped off to eat," says Marik with smarm.

"Of course," says Ryou, almost on the point of realising why that delivery unsettles him so much. "Same time next week?"

"I'll expect it," says Marik.

As Ryou is showing him to the door, Marik wheels upon him, slamming his hands to the wall either side of Ryou's head.

Ryou's heartbeat quickens, but he doesn't flinch, just juts his chin upwards to stare Marik down. "I've eaten scarier things than you."

Seconds drip past one by one.

Marik laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone's interested, the game they are playing is Unknown Armies. If you're interested in personal horror, obsession, and the laws of the universe, please check it out, it's one of my fave systems.
> 
> As this is a giftfic, no criticism is sought at this time.


End file.
